The present invention generally relates to a membrane and to a method for making a membrane and more particularly, to a method which creates a wide variety of membranes in a cost effective manner, such as but not limited to a metal hydrogen permeable membrane.
A membrane is used as a filter since it is adapted to allow only one or a few selected types of materials to pass through or traverse it. Particularly, a metallic membrane may be used in a wide variety of applications such as but not limited to a gasoline to hydrogen reformation process in which hydrogen is selectively removed from gasoline and used within a fuel cell.
While current metallic membranes do adequately provide desired filtering, they are relatively expensive requiring a relatively pure and relatively thick metallic layer in order to operatively obtain the desired filtering characteristics or attributes. Moreover, current metallic membrane creation processes are not readily adapted to efficiently and dynamically create different types of membranes having respectively diverse types of materials. Rather, these processes are usually adapted to utilize a certain type of metal and are not easily adaptable to allow the creation of diverse types of membranes having different types or selected types of metals or materials.
It is therefore desirable to provide a membrane and a process for creating a membrane which overcomes some or all of the previously delineated disadvantages of currently available membranes and processes.
It is a first non-limiting advantage of the present invention to provide a membrane which overcomes some or all of the previously delineated disadvantages of currently available membranes.
It is a second non-limiting advantage of the present invention to provide a process for creating a membrane. which overcomes some or all of the previously delineated disadvantages of currently used membrane creating processes.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, a membrane is provided. The membrane includes a first material; and a second material which is selectively deposited upon the first material.
According to a second aspect of the present invention a method for producing a membrane is provided. The method includes the steps of providing a substrate; rolling a first material onto the substrate; selectively depositing a second material onto the first material; and heating the first and second materials.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a reading of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the invention and by reference to the following drawings.